Trump threatens 'obliteration' as Iran slams sanctions on Khamenei

US President Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday to
obliterate parts of Iran if it attacked “anything American”, as Iran said the
latest US sanctions had closed off any chance of diplomacy.

“Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with
great and overwhelming force,” Trump tweeted just days the United States came
within minutes of bombing Iranian targets.

“In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration,” the US
president tweeted.

....Iran’s very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John Kerry & Obama!

Trump on Monday signed an executive order imposing sanctions
against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior figures.
Sanctions against Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are expected later this
week.

“Imposing useless sanctions on Iran’s Supreme Leader and the
commander of Iran’s diplomacy is the permanent closure of the path of
diplomacy,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi tweeted.

“Trump’s desperate administration is destroying the
established international mechanisms for maintaining world peace and security.”

The moves came after Iran shot down a US drone last week and
Trump called off a retaliatory air strike minutes before impact. It would have
been the first time the United States had bombed Iran in decades of hostility
between them.

Trump said last week that he had decided at the last minute
that too many people would die.

In a televised address on Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani said sanctions against Khamenei would have no practical impact because
the cleric had no assets abroad.

Rouhani, a pragmatist who won two elections on promises to
open Iran up to the world, described the US moves as desperate and called the
White House “mentally retarded” – an insult that other Iranian officials have
used in the past about Trump, but a departure from Rouhani’s own comparatively
measured tone.

Rouhani and his cabinet run Iran’s day-to-day affairs, while
Khamenei, in power since 1989, is Iran’s ultimate authority.

“The White House actions mean it is mentally retarded,”
Rouhani said. “Tehran’s strategic patience does not mean we have fear.”

US SANCTIONS

The United States has imposed crippling economic sanctions
against Iran since last year, when Trump withdrew from an agreement between
Tehran and world powers to curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for the
lifting of sanctions.

The crisis has escalated sharply since last month, when the
Trump administration tightened the sanctions, ordering all countries to halt
purchases of Iranian oil.

That has effectively starved the Iranian economy of the main
source of revenue Tehran uses to import food for its 81 million people, and
left Iran’s pragmatic faction with no benefits to show for its nuclear
agreement.

Washington says the 2015 agreement reached under Trump’s
predecessor Barack Obama did not go far enough because it is not permanent and
does not cover issues beyond the nuclear program, such as missiles and regional
behavior.

Iran says there is no point negotiating with Washington when
it has abandoned a deal that was already reached.

The downing of the US drone – which Iran says was over its
air space and the United States says was international skies – followed weeks
of rising tensions that had begun to take on a military dimension.

The United States and some regional allies have blamed Iran
for attacks on tankers in the Gulf, which Tehran denies. Washington’s European
allies have repeatedly warned both sides of the danger that a small mistake
could lead to war.